Chrono24 and eBay are genuinely useful. Millions of people use them every month to see what a watch is actually worth, and both have built real buyer protections worth understanding. They are also both marketplaces, which means both are charging someone a fee on every single sale — and that fee does not disappear, it gets built into the price you see.
How Chrono24's fees actually work
A private seller on Chrono24 pays a flat 6.5% commission on the sale price, with no listing fee, only due once the watch actually sells. Professional dealers pay differently: a variable commission that generally runs from around 9% up into the low double digits depending on the brand, price and condition of the watch, stacked on top of a recurring monthly package fee that can run from roughly €200 upward depending on how much inventory they carry. That monthly fee is due whether anything sells that month or not — and dealers price their watches to cover it.
How eBay's fees actually work
eBay's standard final value fee runs around 13% on most categories, plus a small per-order charge. For watches priced at $2,000 or more, eBay requires its Authenticity Guarantee service — a genuine, independent inspection before the watch reaches the buyer, which eBay itself covers the cost of. That is a real security benefit worth having. What is worth knowing honestly: for watches priced between $500 and $1,999.99, that authentication is only an optional add-on, paid by the buyer if they choose it. A meaningful number of watches in exactly that band sell with no mandatory authentication at all.
Where the savings actually come from
None of this makes Chrono24 or eBay bad places to shop — they are large, established, and the fees fund real infrastructure. But a seller without a boutique storefront, without a monthly platform package, and without a double-digit commission built into every sale has real room to price lower and still make sense of the deal. That is not a trick. It is the difference between a marketplace's overhead and a direct seller's overhead, and it is exactly how sourcing watches directly through personal contacts can land at a lower number for the same reference.
What a marketplace gives you that a direct seller has to earn
To be fair to both platforms: escrow, buyer-seller dispute resolution, and the sheer scale to comparison-shop a reference across hundreds of listings are real advantages of a large marketplace. A smaller, direct seller does not get those for free — they have to build the same trust another way. That is the honest gap to ask about before buying from any independent seller, us included.
How we close that gap
Every watch we source is checked by a professional watchmaker before it ships, the same kind of independent confirmation eBay builds into its higher price tiers by default. On top of that: a 30-day return if the watch is not as described or fails that check, a full year of our own guarantee even where the manufacturer's has run out, and insured tracked shipping with FedEx or UPS. Those are the same protections a marketplace sells you through its fee structure — offered directly, without the monthly package fee or the double-digit commission sitting inside the price.
If there is a specific reference you have already seen listed on Chrono24 or eBay, send it to us and we will tell you honestly whether we can do better on it.